1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a handover control apparatus, a relay router, a gateway apparatus, an access router, a base station, a mobile communication system, and a handover control method.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, packet communication with high utilization efficiency of communication links is used for transmission and reception of data between radio terminal units including cellular phones. In the packet communication, a handover involves a process of switching an access router (AR; Access Router) for transmitting packets to the radio terminal unit, over to another. And there is concern that some packets fail to arrive at the radio terminal unit during the handover (packet loss). In order to reduce the packet loss, packets transmitted from a correspondent node with the radio terminal unit were thus buffered during the handover in the old access router before the handover, and the packets were forwarded to a new access router of a switchover destination after completion of the handover.